Jack Kugelmass, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies and professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida, remembers his parents speaking "kitchen Yiddish," Yiddish phrases, as a child growing up in Montreal, Canada. He speaks fondly of his grandmother, who was both a Yiddish speaker and an intellectually engaged leader in his family and discusses the cultural ties between Canadian Jewry living in Montreal. He discussed the current challenges to Yiddish and Jewish studies in contemporary American academia—namely, the shortage of financial resources and available information that plague academia in general. He also discussed growing up as a Canadian Jew in Montreal, and the differences between his experiences of American and Canadian Judaism. Kugelmass outlines his academic evolution, ultimately concluding that the future of Yiddish depends on the university systems. Finally, he speaks about the importance of Jewish culture to American popular culture, and about the challenges of defining Jewish studies and overall cultural identity.


This movie is part of the collection: Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project

Producer: Yiddish Book Center
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Yiddish Book Center; National Yiddish Book Center; Wexler Oral History Project; Jewish Community of Montreal; Jewish Community of Canada; University of Florida; Yiddish; Jewish Studies; Anthropology; Russia; YIVO; Jewish Academia; Jewish Deli

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

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